


Cosmopolitan

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Bottom Shelf [4]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Agender Character, Clubbing, Domestic, Interquel, Other, Worldbuilding, gon is 17 at this point, hisoka-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night out on the town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmopolitan

**Author's Note:**

> this goes between the chapters "Shots " and "Moscato Redux", as far as timelines are concerned. I got to thinking about this random one-off line in Whiskey Dark and decided, hey, why not write something fun for yourself? You deserve it.
> 
> So I did.

Dull people, you might say, look out at the world from their windows and see no potential there. They get focused on a specific kind of thing they want, and they forget about the myriad of little diversions scattered promisingly at their feet. The sheer waste of it never ceased to amaze. It might just be that Hisoka was so perpetually hungry for stimulation that they had to either content themself with a world of small bites or starve, but generally they could find a glint of interest in any room they walked through. Usually Gon was one of the few people who understood—possibly his most endearing quality, certainly his most entertaining—but today was trying his patience, apparently.

Gon, slung over the arms of the couch like a disaffected prince from an ancient play, let out a self-pitying little sigh. “And he says I’m not allowed to do any fighting or heavy training until all of it’s flushed out of my bloodstream, which is another _week.”_

Hisoka barely looked up from what they were doing, which at the moment was pouring an extra helping of powder into a smoothie they had made for themself yesterday, before Gon arrived. They typically took the liberty of premixing those when Gon visited, since the screeching of the blender took its toll on his already sensitive ears. Hisoka caught the rim of their glass with one finger and slid it along the counter after them, as they rounded the corner of the kitchenette.

“That sounds dull,” they remarked.

“Well,” Gon amended, “there’s lots of other interesting things I can do, probably, it’s just that I was really hoping to train with you while I was here.”

Hisoka passed a second glass into Gon’s hands, wordlessly. Gon had been looking forward to this. Gon had been imagining himself with Hisoka. It was an interesting state of affairs, to observe someone disappointed _not_ to spend time with them. Generally people regarded their absence as a relief, unless their services were required for one thing or another. Even then, no one was ever _enthused_ about it.

There was evening light filtering through the curtains behind Gon, coming in dim and grainy the way that sunsets always did at the highest reaches of the Heaven’s Arena. Hisoka tugged the panes of cloth apart, peering down speculatively at the city below. The edges of their lips turned up.

“Well we can’t have you bored,” they said. “I would seem a very poor host.”

Gon twisted in his seat like an eel, wriggling up enough to get an arm over the back of the couch. “What’s your idea?” he asked, the pout of moments before melted away like so much butter. Hisoka imagined licking Gon's moods from their fingers, sunny and sweet and warm over their knuckles.

“You know what all the best fighters have in common?” they asked, glancing at Gon out the corner of their eye.

“Um,” Gon said. “Stamina?”

Hisoka hummed noncommittally and turned away from the window at last. They slid closer to Gon, trailing nails over the plush rise of the couch’s back. “Grace,” they said, fingers flicking up to catch Gon underneath his chin. “Quick learning,” they said, following the curve of his ear, burying their hand in his hair. “And improvisational skills,” they said, swooping Gon up into their arms all at once.

He bounced against their chest, hanging over Hisoka's arms like he had the arms of the couch.

“ _Whoa_ ,” Gon yelped, clutching for a hold around the back of Hisoka’s neck. He squinted up, heart beating frantically against the taut drum of his skin. “Geeze, you don't have to throw me around.”

“Can’t have you getting bored,” Hisoka repeated, as they carried Gon away to the walk-in closet. It took up the majority of the far wall, and Gon had once remarked that being inside it was like standing inside a secret, very soft tunnel. They toed the door open and carried Gon through, catching a look at their reflection in the mirror at the far end of the racks. A study in contrasts, Gon dark and green in their arms and they, pale and bubblegum bright, carrying him.

“Now,” they said, meandering over to the little section where they had stored a few items in Gon’s size, on a whim, “it shouldn’t be anything too striking, you’ll need adaptability—a certain level of anonymity—”

They felt Gon straining for a better look at the end section. “Those look a little small for you,” he noted, palm pressing heavily on Hisoka’s shoulder for leverage. “Are they old? Are they from when you were younger?”

“They’re yours actually.”

Gon stopped wriggling and slid out of Hisoka’s grip like so much liquid, landing crouched on the carpet at Hisoka’s feet. He cocked his head to the side. “You bought me clothes?”

Hisoka shrugged, artfully, in just such a way that the silken sleeve of their robe slipped down their shoulder. “It would certainly appear so.”

Gon’s eyes followed the drift of silk, and then belatedly snapped back to Hisoka’s face. Unsurprisingly, distraction tactics didn't go very far with him. He got back to his feet and ran a hand over the array of hanging clothes, pulling some of the hangers apart to get a better look at them.

“Thank you,” Gon said, “but… why did you get them? I always bring my own stuff with me when I visit.”

“You mean you always come wearing one jacket with a spare shirt and a change of underclothes in your backpack.”

Gon wrinkled his nose. “That’s what I said.”

Hisoka looked down at him. There was absolute silence for a solid minute. Finally, they said, “Well, I trust you won’t be too disappointed to have a few more options.”

Gon peered through the selection. Most of what they had picked out was basic, uninteresting, and versatile. They had made a sweep of one of the higher end department stores last month, on a day that had been so itchingly dull that they could barely stand to remain in the city. They’d left their rooms in a dark mood, oozing enough Ren to keep fans and fighters alike at bay as they left the spire of the arena behind them. That day it had seemed like the only interesting thing left in the world was Gon—not due to visit again for weeks, out of contact and out of reach. Hisoka had stalked through the city aimlessly, until they passed a particular mannequin in the window of a shop and some sense of familiarity clicked on. Hisoka had spent the rest of the afternoon meticulously selecting an array of outfits, feeling that with each careful selection they were assembling a form around Gon’s absence, hemming in that negative space until it became a kind of presence. Here, and not here.

They had never experienced a dissatisfaction quite so curiously profound until meeting Gon. They were still not entirely sure how to engage with it.

Now, lifting a hanger from the rack, Gon said, “You only bought shorts.”

“But you look so fetching in shorts.”

Gon shot them a slightly suspicious look, but let it go. “So,” he said, pulling free a dark jacket embroidered with a black clover, “where are we going?”

Hisoka reached past him and lifted out a matching shirt and shorts, before he could get any wild ideas about mixing colors. “We’re going to go clubbing,” they said, pressing the set into his arms. “How do you feel about high heels?”

“Uh, no thanks.” He paused, apparently rewinding the conversation back a line or two. “Wait, we’re going—?”

“Dancing,” Hisoka agreed.

Gon held the outfit at arm's length. “Um,” he said, “I’ve never actually _been_ dancing. I don’t think I know how.”

“I’ll teach you.”

That got his attention. He looked up, eyes wide.

“Perhaps you can’t do any of your usual, more… strenuous activities,” Hisoka said, allowing their robe to slip from their arms, pooling on the ground as they turned back towards the rest of the closet, “but there are other activities that will flex the same skills. You’ll find, I think, that these two are not ultimately so dissimilar.”

They looked over their shoulder to find Gon unsubtly staring at their ass. _Finally_. “So,” they finished, “put that on, and go finish your drink. We’re leaving in half an hour.”

“That long?” Gon asked, frowning.

Hisoka reached up and caught a twist of pink hair between their fingers, examining it skeptically. “I still need to put my face on,” they said.

 

 

 

Half an hour later, and some change, Hisoka led them under the glowing entrance to the ambitiously named _Inferno,_ arguably the hottest night spot in the city. The soaring interior glowed in primarily reds, and against the lurid dimness graceful human shapes moved. Hisoka stood beside Gon in the entrance for a moment, watching him watching the shift and shadow of the grand room. It had been a warehouse once, before the city had grown over its own edges and spilled into the countryside, pushing the ugly necessities of urban planning even further from the city’s center.

“This,” Hisoka explained, wrapping a hand over Gon’s hip, “is the most successful nightclub in the city. You might call it the ‘classic model’. Observe the style of the patrons, the music.”

Gon obliged, tilting his head. His eyes dulled with the emptiness that meant he was taking in everything, sense by sense, allowing the world to pour into him and fill him up. Hisoka licked over their bottom lip, fingers tightening on Gon’s hip. He was so pretty when he went hollow like that, the perfect stillness before the clever whirl. They would certainly pluck Gon's eyes for keepsakes, someday, if the opportunity presented itself. They could keep the pair with the dried flowers that still sat on the window sill.

“Come this way,” they said, tugging him along towards the neon of the bar above the dance floor. They followed the raised curvature of the upper level, passing booths and loveseats set back against the banister, the lights growing darker and cooler on their circuit upward. From above, there was a peculiarly removed view of the floor, as if it were a scene from another world.

“Sit,” they said, gesturing to one of the seats along the bar. While Gon was swinging himself up onto a barstool, Hisoka leaned across the counter and ordered themself a martini. “I could positively drown in nostalgia,” they remarked, twisting back towards the younger hunter. “Will you have a drink with me this time?”

“I’m still underage,” Gon said severely. That said, his eyes tracked Hisoka’s martini all the way from the mixer to the countertop. “What’s in that?”

“Vermouth,” Hisoka said, “gin.”

“I thought we were here to dance?”

“Patience,” Hisoka said, licking the residue of bitter liquid from the rim of the glass. They drew it away from their lips, examining the crystal depths. “I said we were going clubbing. Drinking is part of the experience. Are you sure you won’t try some?”

In Hisoka’s experience, there were not many seventeen-year-olds who had the willpower necessary to turn down forbidden knowledge. In Hisoka’s experience, there were not many human beings who could. Gon, chewing his lip and rocking slightly in his chair, might be one of the proud few.

Hisoka took a light sip of their drink and then leant forward, catching Gon’s chin in one hand. His lips parted slightly under the pressure, a sliver of tempting darkness opening there, and Hisoka dove into it. Gon’s body seized under them, trying to pull back, eyes snapping wide.

“Tsk,” Hisoka said, as they let go, “how messy.”

Gon swiped at his mouth with his forearm, tongue flat against his own skin. “That was even worse than I remember,” he said. “It’s like poison. Don’t do that again.”

“I won’t,” Hisoka agreed. They settled their cheek in their palm. “But you didn’t break your promise, and you also got to try the taste with a more mature palate, and so I’d say it was overall a successful experiment.”

“I don’t think I like it.”

“You might never,” Hisoka shrugged. “Many people don’t.” They snapped a handkerchief out of thin air—most accurately, a cloth napkin they had palmed from a passing tray as they left the arena—and pressed it to Gon’s soaking face. In all of that, Hisoka had managed not to swallow a single droplet of drink.

Gon scowled down at the cloth as it swiped wetness from his chin. “And now I’m all sticky… What are you actually trying to do here, Hisoka?”

“Are you trying to imply I want anything other than your continued happiness, my sweet?”

Gon narrowed his eyes. The cloth followed a shining trail of liquid down the column of his throat, lazily, down into the dip of his collar bone. “You don’t have to tell me, but I won’t be able to help if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Hisoka paused, and then laid the napkin neatly folded onto the bar. “We’re here for exactly the reasons I told you,” they said. They stood, offering open palms to Gon. After a beat, he took them, and allowed himself to be pulled from his seat. The undrunk martini remained where it sat.

They led Gon to the edge of the floor, where the banister overlooked the dancers below. From so far away, it moved like the teaming sleekness of an anthill, each body slipping and skating past the others on its own ineffable course.

“The first thing,” Hisoka said, draping themself close over Gon’s shoulder, “is rhythm. All things have a rhythm peculiar to them—if you watch carefully, you can discern the underlying pattern of anything, no matter how strange to you.”

They directed Gon’s attention to the women suspended on pedestals above the floor, lit by spotlights just dim enough to fade in at the edge of conscious observation. “See how their feet slide rather than lift? Everything is a question of smooth and sharp motions. Those act as the stressed and unstressed syllables of the language.” Along the delicate nape of Gon’s neck, they moved their fingers in time to the dancers’ pulsing motions, trailing over the knob of the atlas vertebra. A shiver raced down from their touch.

“They’re beautiful, hm?” Hisoka said, drawing back to watch the small hairs along Gon’s neck lifting. “They are paid to be beautiful, of course. How is that done, do you think?”

They could feel Gon fighting not to tense up under the contact, determined not to let Hisoka believe for a moment that he was losing any contest—even one he didn’t yet understand the nature of. “…Posture,” he said, after a moment. “You’d expect them to watch their feet since they’re doing those complicated steps, but they mostly just look up.”

“Good,” Hisoka said, thumb slipping just under the collar of Gon’s jacket. “What else?”

“Um,” Gon said, and Hisoka heard him biting his lip. “Their arm movements compliment their steps, it’s never just one piece of their body they’re moving.”

“Good,” Hisoka said, against the whorl of Gon’s ear. The tips of their nails circled the far curve of his chin, down over the clavicle, down under the dark shroud of his cotton shirt.

“You’re—distracting me,” Gon whined, muscles flexing as he tamped down either flinches or interest. His control was improving. Hisoka buried their nose in the soft hair behind his ear, breathing in the sharp human scent. The corner of their lip brushed it, hot with flushed capillaries, so gentle against their skin.

“No…” they said, thoughtfully, “that doesn’t sound like something I would do…”

Their nail flicked the peak of one nipple, and Gon’s whole body spasmed underneath them—almost a thrash, penned in close against Hisoka’s side, all those delicious little stifled tremors breaking loose all at once. Hisoka gave him a playful little squeeze, and then disengaged the arm wrapped around him all at once. They pulled back, tugged a wrinkle out of their shirt, and gave Gon an innocent, expectant look.

“Well?” they said. “Are we going to hang around up here all night?”

Gon, panting and red in the face, couldn’t seem to manage a response. Hisoka shrugged and turned around, gesturing at nothing in particular.

“Come along,” they said, “this is only our first stop.”

As Gon jogged to catch up, Hisoka pulled their cell from their pocket, opened up a new text, and selected the number for Killua Zoldyck, who would probably be alarmed to discover that Hisoka had his number at all. Perhaps tonight would be exciting for him as well.

 _Good Evening~_ they typed.

 

 

 

Part two, Hisoka explained (once Gon was done shouting about who had or hadn’t been cheating at what), was a club further down along the entertainment strip. Whereas part one had been the city’s most popular club, in the classical style, part two was much less polished. _Inferno_ specialized in creating an atmosphere that catered to the best of the best—its allure was the ability to observe the hyper talented at work, quietly, without fuss or interference. Perhaps fifteen percent of its clients were regular participants on the dance floor; the rest came to drink and watch what unfolded below. This was why they paid their own dancers to join the crowd.

 _Discoteca_ , by contrast, hired no dancers. The atmosphere was more inclined to the enthusiastic amateur, anonymity, and the pulsing energy of a crowd in motion. Like a sea, it moved in waves—hundreds of arms rising and falling to the steady tide of the DJ’s selection. While the patrons of the _Inferno_ saw everything and said nothing, the patrons here saw very little but had quite a lot to say.

“Are we getting drinks again?” Gon asked, with a doubtful little moue on his lips.

Hisoka glanced towards the bar, observing the figure of the bartender—her movements, her presence—in one swift pass. “That won’t be necessary,” they said. “After all, you’re underage aren’t you? What kind of chaperone would I be if I let you near the bar?”

Before Gon could respond, which he looked as if he dearly wanted to, Hisoka took his hand and pulled him into the pulsing heaviness of the crowd. The limits of the world became skin, interlocked like puzzle pieces, the atmosphere close and hot around them; the physical hyper real and falling away to nothing beyond the pressing of the next human body.

Hisoka vaguely recognized the underlying tune coming over the speakers as something that had played in a café they visited not so long ago. The beat came back to them in the hazy instinct of memory, and they pulled Gon's back against their chest, guiding him through a measure or two as they swayed along. His shoulder blades pressed and shifted with a tantalizing softness, a whispered touch.

“Have you got it?” Hisoka asked, fingers sliding over his broad ribcage and down into the dip of his hips, always a little more pronounced than the average boy’s.

Gon nodded. It had the slight hesitating unevenness of determination rather than sincerity, but Hisoka allowed him to maintain the front for his pride. They let go. There was a slight discordant stumble, as Gon tried to catch up with the time signature, a jangle of motions that transitioned into something passably graceful. He swayed. His feet spun across the tile, his fingers spread, his heels arched up off the ground like the martial artist he was. Hisoka grinned.

They took hold of Gon’s hands, as he went, and pulled him close again. There was another stumble.

“No fair,” Gon said, over the bone-rattling thump of the music, “I’ve been watching the single dancers, I haven’t got the couples’ stuff worked out yet.”

“Ah,” Hisoka said, titling their head, “then you will have to learn quickly won’t you?”

They led Gon through a series of steps at a breathless pace, stopping for nothing, pushing for a faster and still faster pace. From full notes to eighth notes—Gon followed doggedly, matching each still more complicated motion push for pull. Glittering sweat gathered at his hairline, his breath came in heavy pants; with each moment his eyes took on a shade more of that empty focus, as if the room and the night and the thrum of the crowd had become like a trance leaving him gorgeously hollow.

At the zenith of the song, as it rushed towards its crashing conclusion, Gon surged forward, falling panting against them as they caught him under one knee and drew him up into the final figure of a tango. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts. Each breath pushed against Hisoka, the two of them suspended in the twilight between one tune and another. The music died. All around them partners were uncoupling in anticipation of the next song, but Hisoka made no effort to let go. The curve of their thigh burned hot between Gon’s legs.

“H—how often do you do this?” Gon asked.

“Oh,” Hisoka said, “I haven’t been out like this in perhaps five years? Before you and I knew each other.”

Gon’s mouth popped open in a little surprised O. “But you’re—” he started, and then the rest was lost to the pounding music and the imprecision of lip-leading. Hisoka let the leg slide down their thigh, and pulled away at last.

If they were to select a preferred place in the world, where they felt most at home, it would probably be seated on the ledge of a window somewhere, watching the people come and go beneath them—or in the center of the ring, an island, free to advance or retreat at their leisure. The busy press of a night club, with its myriad of prying eyes and clumsy bodies, did not rank high on that hypothetical list. In any case, it was an interesting diversion for a night, but not nearly complex enough of a challenge to hold their interest past that. There was no reason to make a habit of it.

They were considering how much, if any, of that to bother explaining when their idle scan of the room presented the prospect of new mischief. At the edge of the floor, just visible with the boost of height their boots lent them, there was someone who would be quite easy to lead through a little experiment that Hisoka had been idly considering for the last half hour.

“I think I _will_ get a drink,” they said. “I trust you can entertain yourself for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Gon said. He was already bobbing absently to the beat of the current song.

The tightness of the crowd parted for Hisoka as they slipped through, oozing the finest trail of Ren in their wake. It was good for keeping nosier people at a distance, although one or two looked nervously over their shoulders. Hisoka ignored them. At the edge of the dance floor, in a flock of young hangers-on, there was a personal acquaintance of Hisoka's. They stepped just carefully past the edge of the cooing ring, ignoring those too, as they made their way to the bar.

Barda Joyas, in his crop top and designer jeans, looked every bit the ambitious starlet that he was. Hisoka hadn't taken a full step past the circle of his groupies before they could feel him ducking out after them, pushing between bemused bodies. Joyas caught up to them just as they reached the bar, clearly trying not to show that he'd expended any effort in getting there. His breathing was stilted and labored even as he casually settled a hip against the counter.

"Well,” he began, “if it isn’t the chop shop’s mascot. I see you’ve left off that garish facepaint for the night—did it scare the children at the funfair where you work?”

“What a delight it is to see you,” Hisoka replied, without actually looking at him at all. They leaned over the counter instead, to catch the bartender’s attention. She jerked slightly as she turned, but her expression remained flawlessly mild, as if the body and the mind were somehow at a disconnect. “A cosmo, please,” they said, and pointed a finger lazily at Joyas. “What are you drinking? My treat.”

Joyas bristled in their peripheral vision. “That won’t be necessary,” he said, talking to the bartender now. “In fact, I’m buying. Get us two.”

Hisoka watched the woman as she strained for the vodka on the top shelf, instead of Joyas, who was shaking out his wallet like it owed him something.

“Haven’t seen you out in a while,” the man said. “When’s that slaughterhouse putting you back on rotation?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m due to fight at the end of the month.”

Joyas’ finger twitched over the pocket of his jeans, where his slim phone bulged against the tight material. “ _Huh_ ,” he said. “Who’re you up against?”

“Oh, no one you’d be interested in,” Hisoka replied. “After all, you’ve made such a point of distancing yourself from the Arena these last years.”

Joyas visibly grit his teeth. Of course that information, had Hisoka been willing to part with it, would have been worth quite a number of favors and perhaps money too. Certain bookies and scalpers would pay dearly to know the lineup of a floor master battle before the match was officially announced.

Hisoka reached out and plucked their drink from the bartender’s hand as she came over. They scooped a delicate drip of pink liquid from the side, where it looked as if fruit juice had been messily splashed over the edge. Hisoka narrowed their eyes at the matching splash on the mixing counter. “How are your talks with the Angeles agents going?” they asked.

Joyas huffed. He lifted his own glass from the bartender's hands straight to his lips—Hisoka carefully did not watch—and took a drink. There was no change in his expression. “Same as ever,” he said. “Fuck them, anyways. If they can’t take a chance on a good thing when they see it, they’re no good to me anyways.”

At that point, he downed half the glass like it was a straight shot of whiskey. There was no change in him at all, save that he seemed to suddenly remember to put his money down on the counter.

“Perhaps if you were single again,” Hisoka suggested. “A good spin agent could probably convince an unfamiliar audience that you’re a traditional family man, hm?”

Joyas glared daggers. “Easy for you to recommend a career based on pretending,” he said.

“I fail to discern what the difference between a magician and an actor actually is.”

“The _difference_ ,” Joyas said, “is that everyone knows I’m not actually the tragic prince Ysault, whereas the chicanery you flashy bastards get up to in that tower is—uh,” Joyas broke off, swiveling around, “—who are you?”

Hisoka turned and shot Gon a questioning eyebrow lift, which the teenager cheerfully ignored.

“Gon Freecs,” Gon replied, offering his hand. “I’m Hisoka’s boyfriend, I guess? I don’t know, am I your boyfriend? We’ve never really talked about it.”

“If you like,” Hisoka said, taking a delicate sip of their drink.

“You have a _boyfriend_?”

Gon put a hand on his hip. His skin was bright with sweat in the flashing lights.“Why is that so surprising?”

“Morou, here—” Joyas jerked a thumb in Hisoka’s direction, “acts like he’s too good for any of us mundane humans walking around with our feet actually touching the ground.”

Hisoka subtly shook their head at Gon, as he went to correct Joyas’ choice of pronoun. Gon’s mouth, already open, popped closed. _Much better_. If Joyas knew too much about them, it would only spoil the fun of watching him unsubtly attempt to investigate every irrelevant mystery. Hisoka had to keep entertained somehow, between Gon's visits. Joyas had been good for livening up some of the duller months in this city, particularly when it came time for one of those regrettable promotional events that the arena seemed so enamored with. He just couldn't stand to see Hisoka sitting in a corner checking their phone when there was an empty spotlight shining on the ground a few feet away. It drove him positively mad.

Joyas looked Gon over, head to toe, and sniffed. “Bit young for him, aren't you?”

“I’m seventeen,” Gon said, a darling frown furrowing his pretty face.

“He’s—” Joyas blinked rapidly, “he’s seventeen. That’s— _wow_. What’s wrong, old man, can’t find anybody your own age to drag around?”

Hisoka smiled pleasantly, eyes slitting to harmless crescents. They spun their fingers and plucked one of Joyas’ business cards from the empty air. “Barda Joyas,” they explained, “is an actor. He very publically and enthusiastically prefers men to women, which is an unpopular life decision in the country that produces most of the world’s big budget films. Barring an impressively swift change in the social mores of that country, I’m afraid to say that Joyas will remain forever a purely local phenomenon.”

Joyas snatched the card from their hand. “ _Give me that_ ,” he said. He turned back to Gon, shoving it into his pocket along with his wallet. “Kid, a word of advice? If you’re dating this guy ‘cause he’s got some local notoriety, from one fool to another, drop him like a rag. All us celebrities are assholes.”

The man's drink was almost empty at this point, and there was nothing notable to observe in his bearing. Hisoka licked a droplet of cosmopolitan from the edge of their own glass, and tasted nothing unusual. So then, it wasn’t the drink.

“—fought a couple times in the arena,” Gon was saying, his arms miming the cast of a fishing line. “So I don’t think of it as a big deal.”

Joyas paused, glass halfway to his lips, and gave Gon a more thorough once-over. “You’re _that_ kid?” he asked, “You had a match earlier this year?”

Gon bounced on his toes, nodding enthusiastically. Joyas scowled and finished his drink in one go, wrinkling his nose.

“Figures,” he said. “Birds of a feather, up in your ivory tower…”

“How come you don’t like the Heaven’s Arena?” Gon asked, cutting right through the vague haze of negativity.

“Well I shouldn’t have to tell _you_ ,” Joyas said, “how rigged that whole place is. Honestly, it’s embarrassing how everyone in this city seems to buy into it. Look, I’ve been around the block, the human body can only take so much damage—anybody with a brain should be able to tell how staged those matches are up on the 200th floors.”

“We met,” Hisoka volunteered, “when we were both on the 150th floor. What was it… eight years ago?”

Gon was frowning, fingers tapping against his thighs. “But you have to know they’re not fake, then. People don’t die in fake fights.”

“Ahh,” Hisoka interrupted, “don’t try to talk him out of it. He’s determined to agree with the executives in Angeles regardless of what he’s seen himself. They tried to contract an international broadcast for the arena once, you know, but people elsewhere didn’t seem to want to bite. Too much disbelief to suspend.”

“Forget it,” Joyas said, shoving his empty glass across the counter top. “You two have fun, I guess. I’ve got to get back to my people.”

“Of course. We certainly wouldn’t want to keep them from the invigorating light of your ever-unvarying star power, would we, Gon?”

Joyas tensed, hackles rising, and turned back around. “Listen here,” he said, jabbing a finger at Hisoka’s chest.

In the flicker of an instant Hisoka was gone—the stool was empty, the air split with smoke—and then they were behind Joyas. They cupped their cheek in one hand and waited while Joyas whirled, fists coming up into the classic defense of a north-trained brawler, one foot sliding in an arc across the tile. Now, if he had ever made it up past the 199th floor, he probably would have noticed that Hisoka had only leapt from their seat, summersaulting overhead to land neatly at his back. Quite explicable. As it was, it constituted its own kind of magic.

“Yes?” Hisoka said, brightly. “I am listening.”

Joyas’ stance held for a moment, and then broke entirely. “I’m not drunk enough for this,” he muttered.

Hisoka watched him turn and go, sucking the cherry from their drink into their mouth. They really _should_ get out more often…

“Your friend looks like he needs a vacation,” Gon said, genuinely concerned as he watched the man's retreat.

“I’m sure he’d be horrified to hear you call him that,” Hisoka remarked, dragging the knotted cherry stem from between their teeth. “Please do it again the next time you see him.”

They moved to set the empty glass down on the counter, but the bartender held out her hand. “Allow me,” she said.

There was no tell-tale glint in her palm, nothing visible concealed there—Hisoka would never have expected something so elementary—so it was entirely on instinct that they pulled back, fingers parting from the cup just as hers reached for it. For a half second it remained suspended, glittering, in the air between their two hands. And then it bounced off her reaching fingers, slipping through her grasp to shatter like a fallen star across the tile. Her grasping and clutching after its descent came just a moment too slow.

“Oh,” Hisoka said, drawing back, “I’m so sorry, I thought you had it…?”

“No,” she said, “it’s my fault. I’m—clumsy tonight. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

She flexed her fingers, which moved like frostbitten flesh. It seemed likely that whatever had been meant for them would end up affecting her, one way or another. Maybe they would come back and inquire next week, just to see what it might have been. Probably something transferred flesh to flesh.

“You should see a doctor,” Hisoka told her, not unkindly. They pushed a couple crisp bills across the counter. “Health is a lady’s greatest treasure, you know.”

“A-ah,” she said, and slipped the bills into her shirt with hesitating fingers. “Right you are.”

Hisoka turned back to Gon, who had been watching the exchange with a smile that fairly glowed. Although that had been the result they were hoping for, it nevertheless struck them full force, hot and pleasurable as tea in the winter. They scraped their nails down the weave of their pants, grounding themself against the tide of heat in their chest.

“One more stop,” they said. “I trust you’ve mastered the dance floor at this point?”

“Well I don’t know about _mastered_ ,” Gon said, quite modestly, “But I’ve mostly got the hang of it, yes.”

“Then it’s time to go.”

Gon performed one of those ridiculous little martial arts bows that Hisoka had seen him give the Bisky girl on Greed Island, and said, “Hai, sensei.”

Hisoka paused a tick, face impassive. “...I’d rather you didn’t call me that,” they said.

 

 

 

The final club of the night was located past the edge of downtown, after the realm of streetlights had ended and darkness began its creep across the cityscape, full of sinister promises. _Wysteria_ offered its questionable gifts from the bottom floor of a long deserted hotel, empty windows in the higher floors reflecting back nothing but clouds yellowed with urban overflow and faded moonlight. The lower windows, some half-set into the overgrown flowerbeds, flashed improbable shades of neon.

Gon cocked an ear at the music bubbling up from underneath the weight of the building. “That doesn’t sound at all like the last two,” he said. “The rhythm is different.”

“Skill number three,” Hisoka said, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. “Improvisation.”  

They led Gon down the concrete steps to the heavy black door and pushed it open, revealing the glowing heart of _Wysteria_ like a hole in the night. The music here, precisely as observed, diverged from the more classic clubs in town. There was a dark and frantic energy, a pulse and growl, an urgency not quite replicated elsewhere.

Gon’s eyes were arcing over the room, his mouth open in a silent breath of interest, his features outlined in the same shades of hellfire pink as the neon above the door.

“Are we going right in?” he asked. The thumping beat shifted up into a still higher gear, tangible in the very ground below them.

“You are,” Hisoka replied, settling against a wall. “I’ll just watch. Unless you think you need guidance?”

“No,” Gon said, immediately and predictably. “No, I’ve got it.” He pulled his jacket from his shoulders and held it out to Hisoka, who took it easily and folded it over one arm.

The crowd here was neither anthill nor ocean—as Gon stepped up onto the wide floor, the bodies around him resembled nothing so much as some primordial forest, their eyes and teeth unearthly bright under the blacklights. Gon’s hips swung, his boots skimmed the concrete. He became a smile in the darkness, twisting and stomping against a beat that pushed back. He spun, pushed the boundaries of gravity as he went.

Ah, to be here and also there—to watch him in motion, but also to touch him, to taste him… Hisoka unfolded his jacket and pressed the collar to their face, taking heavy sharp breaths. Their whole body thrummed with a desire, overwhelming and sour sweet, to run their fingers over the elegant curves of Gon’s shoulder blades, to ride the curve of his thighs to their natural conclusion—

Gon parted his Cheshire teeth in inaudible laughter, slipping under the raised arms of another dancer who returned his smile. His knees bent, the toe of his boot scraped the ground—something passed over his features like the hunger that came over him when he sparred, just before one of his bizarre, risky schemes—and he leapt, his fingers barely touching the floor as he sprung, twisting through the air. All around him dancers paused in their steps, craning upwards to see him outlined against the neon, suspended for just a moment above them.

Hisoka, too, paused. Their breath caught. For a moment it seemed that Gon would never fall, that he was not a creature of gravity at all—that he would walk his bridge of birds into the soft yellow night and never be seen again. And then Gon met their eye, spread his arms, and fell.

There was a crack, a streak of heat and distant pain, the sound of concrete shattering, but this had nothing to do with Gon, who landed gracefully in Hisoka’s open arms exactly as he had expected to. He hooked an arm over Hisoka’s shoulders and swung down, landing with a little flourish as the dancers all around him wondered to themselves where this new partner had come from all of a sudden. One or two glanced back towards the wall where Hisoka had been standing a moment before. Perhaps one or two noticed the spiderweb of fractures in the concrete there.

“That was fast,” Gon said, breathing heavily and starry-eyed.

“Maybe next time I won’t catch you,” Hisoka replied. “Just to see what you do.”

Gon held them tightly, burning and heavy against the inconsequential fabric of reality, and then his satisfied smile broke all at once. Sharp concern settled over his features. He reached out, fingers gently passing over a deep gash in Hisoka’s arm and leaving smears in the fresh well of blood. “When did this happen?” he asked, leaning closer. His whole body pressed along the length of Hisoka, his other hand wrapped over the curve of their hip. Perhaps if they were to tear themself open even deeper, down to the white shine of bone, Gon would press still closer to touch that soft red flesh, too, with his gentle fingers…

Ah, but there was a time for fantasies. Hisoka pocketed the thought for another night.

“Just now,” they said, inspecting the blood on Gon’s hands with vague interest. “I assume.”

“Someone cut you?”

Hisoka looked up, traced the trajectory from the spiderweb of fractures in one wall to the shattered glass of a higher window across the room, and said, “Shot, actually.”

They allowed their arm to be extended and examined. “We should get a tourniquet on this,” Gon said, “the blood flow isn’t bad but we don’t know what was on that bullet—we should get you checked out as soon as possible.”

A good observation, given all that he didn’t know at the moment. They made their way back to the edge of the room, curious patrons parting in their path. Hisoka picked up the discarded jacket and passed it back to Gon. The fracturing in the wall there surrounded a thumb-sized hole, the depression glittering slightly with some kind of fluid. The placement would have been precisely an inch left of the heart, had they been standing still. If that was poison inside—and there was no reason to think it was not—then any regular motion would have been accounted for, regardless of proximity to their heart. Presumably, the casing would have shattered on any hard contact with flesh. The flashstep that had carried them to Gon had also taken them just far enough out of range to avoid breaking the capsule in the bullet. A kind of miracle, if one was inclined to look for the miraculous.

Hisoka flipped open their phone and checked the recent messages. Gon peered down at it, shameless as usual about prying.

“Whose number is that?” he asked. “You’re paying them for something?”

Hisoka flipped the phone closed and pocketed it again. “Gon, my sweet,” they said, “will you pardon me for just a minute? Go back and dance for a while longer.”

Gon crossed his arms. “You’re not gonna get medical help, are you?”

“It’s not sportsmanlike to heal in the middle of a game.”

Gon huffed a little sigh but pushed up onto his toes, pressing a kiss against the dip where Hisoka’s neck curved into shoulder, and jerked taunt a strip of black canvass around the skin above the graze. The makeshift tourniquet split one bloody thumbprint in half.

“We’ll make a magician of you yet,” Hisoka observed, running a fingertip over the foreign fabric.

“If you want painkillers I carry those too,” Gon said, demonstrating a handful of pale pills in a plastic bag. “Leorio tells me I gotta take the basics with me ‘cause I’m dangerprone.”

“He’s not wrong,” Hisoka said, and with a knowing little wave, ascended the steps into the night. The parking lot behind the hotel was mostly empty of vehicles, the asphalt there pitted and cracked from years of disuse and disinterest. Hisoka strode out into the center of it like an actor taking the stage, blithely indifferent to cover or camouflage. Gravel shifted under their soles.

“I~llu~mi,” they called, cupping their hands around their mouth. “Do come down, won’t you?”

There was a flicker of motion on a rooftop across the road, against the yellowed midnight sky, and then Illumi landed gracefully on the asphalt in front of them, his feet finding purchase as lightly as a ballerina’s. Tonight, he was dressed in a deliciously soft looking black cat suit, probably for added stealth, with an unfamiliar rifle over his shoulder. _My,_ all that just for Hisoka?

“Well that was easy,” they remarked, settling back on their heels.

“There’s no point in staying hidden now,” Illumi said, expression as blank as ever. A strand of his glinting hair slipped over his forehead, causing no discernible reaction. “You will certainly have surmised my presence by now, and will not drop your guard again as long as I remain in the city.”

“I knew it was you from the first martini,” Hisoka said, fondly. “No one else is the right mixture of familiar and ruthless. I wonder how many other people will try that gin tonight? Or was it in the vermouth? It was a very close match for the flavor, in any case.”

“Your wound,” Illumi said, tilting his head just enough that another strand of hair trailed like water over his cheek.

“Mmm,” Hisoka hummed, cupping their shoulder. “That. Would you like to see?”

“No,” Illumi said. “The tourniquet is unnecessary; there was no poison on the outside of the projectile.”

“I thought so,” Hisoka said. “Still, I shouldn’t take the word of the man who shot it, should I?”

“It’s nothing you haven’t already concluded. That thing will do nothing but impair your reaction time from this point forward.”

Hisoka smiled, digging a nail into the slowly oozing wound.“Nonetheless,” they said, “it’s a sweet ache.”

Illumi blinked, once, owlishly. “Gon put it on you.”

Hisoka nodded, still fingering their wound. “You didn’t account for him in your calculations, did you? You’re certainly not the marksman your mother was.”

“Of course I did. You dropped your guard while he was in the air. You usually do that, when you see something you want.” There was a pause, possibly sullen, as his gaze flashed for a second towards the glowing windows of the club. “There might have been—an unforeseen outlier, I admit. He always seems to produce exactly the most unfortunate alterations in the people he touches.”

It was probably burning him up to know that the one thing standing between himself and successfully closing this job was a Gon, who hadn't meant to do it or known that it even needed doing. Illumi despised unforeseen complications. Gon seemed to consist of an endless supply.

Hisoka slid a step closer. Black flashed on black as Illumi retreated, landing in a crouch several feet back. The heavy air of the parking lot, humid and dark, drifted silently back into place between them.

“Have you already been paid?” Hisoka asked.

“Contract to be fulfilled upon delivery,” Illumi answered. “I didn’t ask what they intended for the body. It seemed impolite to pry.”

Hisoka pulled out their phone, tapping out a quick affirmative, even as he said, “I expect now you’re probably hoping to lure me into a trap you’ve laid somewhere else in the city, which will be difficult because I’m expecting it, but not impossible, because I would dearly like to fight you and I am known to take risks.”

They were intimate enough with each other’s ways of thinking for several things to be common, unspoken knowledge between them. One: Illumi had no plans now or ever to engage Hisoka in an out and out fight. Two: Illumi’s traps were most effective after the pursuers had exhausted themselves in the chase. And three: whatever plan Illumi had concocted, it would certainly have accounted for Hisoka’s understanding of these things.

“You’ll still come,” Illumi said.

“I would,” Hisoka agreed, lazily pointing a finger, “if that was all I had to do tonight. But this is as far as we go this time, unfortunately.”

Illumi followed the direction of the finger down to his pocket, which took that supremely apt moment to let out a muffled little ding. He examined the message waiting on his cell, and then looked up.

“You had my client killed.”

“I did."

“You had my mother do it.”

“She did."

Illumi looked—possibly—uncertain for a moment. “Mother hasn’t taken a job in years,” he said. “Not since I was officially partnered into the business.”

“Ah,” Hisoka said, opening a palm, “a little bit of flattery never goes awry with mothers. They’re so underappreciated, it’s positively criminal. And it’s well known that she was the best sniper to ever offer her talents for pay.”

“How did you manage to contact her?” Illumi asked, eyes narrowing just a fraction.

Hisoka waved him off. “The real question is,” they said, “what do you plan to do now that your client is dead?”

Illumi dropped the phone back into his pocket, which was remarkably accommodating for a catsuit. Good money brought good tailors, Hisoka supposed. “You already know I don’t kill without compensation,” he said. “I’m leaving.”

Hisoka took another step towards him. This time, Illumi remained unmoved. “Why don’t you come inside?” they asked, sliding still closer. “There’s always room for one more…”

This time, Illumi’s features wrinkled into something approaching an actual frown. “What in the world could I possibly have to gain from associating with that boy?”

Illumi said “boy” with the same lip-curling sneer that a wife might say “homewrecker”. Hisoka’s smile stretched wide, ear to ear.

“No idea,” they said, “but it would certainly be exciting to find out.”

Illumi turned on his heel and strode out of the parking lot, all at once, like a windup soldier. “Good night, Hisoka,” he said, without slowing his step, “I'll see you Thursday. I moved the reservation to eight.”

Hisoka remained for a while yet in the empty parking lot, watching the passage of dim yellow clouds above. What more could you ask for in a night? Good drinks, good friends, and an assassination attempt. Granted, they owed Killua and his charmingly ruthless mother quite dearly now, but that was the price of a good time, wasn’t it?

Hisoka gave the sky one last fond smile, stretched their arms above their head, and turned back to the hotel. Perhaps Gon had saved a dance for them.

 

 

 


End file.
